FICTION PUBLISHING COMPANY • NEW YORK
Copyright, 1935, 1936 by Leslie Charteris.
Published by Arrangement with Doubleday & Co., Inc. Printed in U.S.A.
WHEN this book was first published, it appeared with the following preface:
For the diving sequences in this story I am deeply indebted to Messrs. Siebe Gorman & Co., of Westminster Bridge Road, London, the well-known submarine engineers, who most kindly made it possible for me to obtain the first-hand experience of diving without which the latter part of this book could not possibly have been written.
For the idea of the story I am indebted solely to history. I have become so used to seeing the adjective 'incredible' regularly used even in the most flattering reviews of the Saint's adventures, even when I have taken my plots from actual incidents which may be found in the files of any modern newspaper, that I almost hesitate to deprive the critics of their favourite word. But I have decided, after some profound searchings of heart, that in this case it is only fair to give them warning. For their benefit, therefore, and also for that of any other reader who may be interested, I should like to say that the facts mentioned on pages 18-19 may be verified by anyone who cares to take the trouble; and I submit that my solution of one of the most baffling mysteries of the sea is as plausible as any.
Obviously, this was long before the invention of the Aqualung brought 'skin diving' to replace many of the cumbersome procedures described in some sequences in this story, to say nothing of special kinds of miniature submarines which can now cruise, observe, and perform certain sampling and pick-up operations at depths which seemed fantastic when Professor Yule invented his 'bathystol.'
That seems to be the trouble with writing any story that hinges on some fabulous invention, in the days we live in. Once upon a time, as with the imaginative predictions of Jules Verne, progress moved with enough dignity and deliberation to allow the book to become a quaint old classic, and the author to pass on to his immortality, before making his incredible creations merely commonplace. Today, the most preposterous contraption a fictioneer can dream up is liable to be on sale in the neighborhood drug store or supermarket while he is still trying to flog his paperback rights.
This is a trap I have fallen into a number of times, and I think I must now resolve to write no more stories of that type. I shall attempt no more adventurous predictions of what some mad (or even sane) scientist will come out with next.
But I am certainly not going to withdraw this story, or any other, simply because technology has outstripped many of the premises and limitations that it was based on. I think it still stands up as a rattling good adventure, and that should be enough for anybody's money. Including my own.
I. HOW SIMON TEMPLAR'S SLEEP WAS DISTURBED,
AND LORETTA PAGE MADE AN APPOINTMENT
SIMON TEMPLAR woke at the shout, when most men would probably have stirred uneasily in their sleep and gone on sleeping. It was distant enough for that, muffled by the multiple veils of white summer fog that laid their five prints of mist on the portholes and filled the night with a cool dampness. The habit of years woke him, rather than the actual volume of sound—years in which that lightning assessment and responses to any chance sound, that almost animal awareness of events even in sleep, that instantaneous leap to full consciousness of every razor-edge faculty, might draw the thin precarious hair-line between life and death.
He woke in a flash, without any sudden movement or alteration in his rate of breathing. The only difference between sleep and wakefulness was that his eyes were open and his brain searching back over his memory of that half-heard shout for a more precise definition of its meaning. Fear, anger, and surprise were there, without any articulate expression. . . . And then he heard the sharp voice of a gun, its echoes drumming in a crisp clatter through the humid dark; another fainter yell, and a splash. . . .
He slid from between the blankets and swung his long legs over the side of the bunk with the effortless natural stealth of a great cat. The moist chill of the fog went into his lungs and goosefleshed his skin momentarily through the thin silk of his pyjamas as he hauled himself up the narrow companion, but he had the other animal gift of adapting himself immediately to temperature. That one reflex shiver flicked over him as his bare feet touched the dew?damp deck; and then he was nervelessly relaxed, leaning a little forward with his hands resting on the weatherboard of the after cockpit, listening for anything that might explain that queer interruption of his rest.
Overhead, according to the calendar, there
